


sunkissed

by i_was_human



Category: Lost in Translation (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Moon, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Purple Prose, Sad, Unrequited Love, sun - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26238481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_was_human/pseuds/i_was_human
Summary: the sun was cripplingly lonely, so he wished for a friend.and so the sky gave him the moon.but the moon, too, was lonely.
Relationships: Ahn Jaewon | Wyld/Kim Daehyun
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	sunkissed

it began, as most things do, with loneliness.

~

jaewon leans against the railing, and for a moment daehyun sees something bigger, something better, the ghost of thousands of _could have been_ s and _almost were_ s and _why wasn't i enough_ s. brilliant red hair shot thought with moonlight - it doesn't suit him, god, it doesn't suit him - and the fresh wound in daehyun's chest crumbles into a chasm.

fresh - it never heals.

jaewon turns to him, then, and daehyun's gaze flickers to the moon behind him - wan, weak, nothing like the brilliance he fell in love with - and then back to jaewon who wasn't always jaewon, who was something bigger and better and _so not lonely_ , back to jaewon who stares at him like he's a ghost, a remnant of his past he'd rather forget, and _isn't that fitting?_ daehyun thinks, _isn't that so sick and twisted and fitting?_

"you're still awake."

the words hang in the air, suspended in the black emptiness of space and the living room and jagged memories all at once, and jaewon smiles.

cracked, weak-

it's nothing like daehyun's accustomed to, nothing like his, nothing like the reflected light that used to shine from jaewon's every orifice back when he was something bigger and better and lonelier than this.

"so are you," jaewon replies, and he has no way of knowing it's because that chasm in his chest turns into a gaping hole as night falls, has no way of knowing it's bitter, bitter grief, but it stings regardless.

how could you have done this?

daehyun who is and isn't daehyun stares at jaewon who is only jaewon, and memory stabs his chest.

~

the sun was lonely - cripplingly, selfishly lonely, and so he wished for a friend.

~

it's cold, and it's dark, and the moon shines down, wan and lifeless. 

daehyun can imagine it's beautiful, sometimes, (doesn't have to imagine at all) and not the hunk of lifeless rock it is, not the testament to his loneliness that shines down, unseeing.

he tests out words in the darkness, tries arguments, _please_ and _why can't you_ and _aren't i enough_ \- words that fall flat in the face of this loneliness gnawing at his heart.

the sun always loved too easily, always gave everything out and left nothing to protect himself, so when the thing that absorbed most of his joy left, it lost direction.

lost purpose.

an expanding heart is meaningless if there's nobody to crawl their way in.

and all daehyun is is his heart, all he is is giving love, but in the absence of that love, there's crippling, aching loneliness.

a heart like his doesn't shrink - it only grows.

~

and so the sky gave him the moon.

~

daehyun was lonely, and then he wasn't lonely.

back when he was more than daehyun, back when he was more than straw-blond hair and sad eyes and desperate hoping for something that will never come to pass, he was lonely in the most abstract sense.

but he couldn't have been lonely, he thinks, because loneliness is built off knowing what could be, and he knew nothing other than the endless and cold emptiness.

and yet, whatever the cause may be, he wished for a friend.

and he got jaewon.

jaewon but not jaewon - the moon - calm, patient, and unable to love the way daehyun does, unable to stretch his rocky heart the same way daehyun's moves with his breaths, but he tried, and yet there was only room enough for one.

and it wasn't daehyun.

jaewon loved the people and the people loved daehyun and daehyun loved jaewon and nothing was reciprocated and everything was hurting and painful and lonely and it _ached_.

turn the triangle into a straight line - abc into ab.

cut out one point.

and oh, daehyun cried - cried tears of gold and keeps crying, cries in that far-off, ethereal part of himself he can only vaguely feel, because daehyun is the sun but the sun is not daehyun and yet is all the same.

cut off the point, stab and twist.

~

but the moon, too, was lonely.

~

"is this what you wanted?"

it's a question both to jaewon and what jaewon isn't, a question both to the boy who can answer and the hopeless love that can't. it's a question daehyun doesn't expect an answer to, doesn't need an answer to (lie) and so it's one thrown out in the midst of a fight, meaningless words splattered with venom, and jaewon digs his nails into his palms and screams _no_.

lie.

jaewon lies when he says he's okay, and the moon lies when he says he loves him.

~

and the moon loved the humans, and the humans loved the moon.

~

jaewon leans against the windowsill, chin propped on his arm, and daehyun raises his head, gaze landing on the thin sliver of light that makes its way through covered glass.

"what are you doing?"

the human who isn't and never was a human stares, transfixed, and daehyun stares at the thin slice of his hair turned golden in the light and wonders _do you want more than this?_

"i love the sun," jaewon simply replies, as though it's a statement, as though it's fact, and daehyun doesn't say it, but he scratches another mark on the inside of his ribcage, over his heart, weathering away the bone with lies and deception.

can lies lead to hope?

he waits for the day when the moon will break open his chest and finally smash this stretching, lonely, grieving heart into pieces so he can pick them up and try to make _something_.

let the love drain out.

 _how can i make something without my_ _everything?_

~

so the moon left the sun for the humans.

~

jaewon's fingers ghost over his cheeks, eyes shut as his lips brush against daehyun's, and he wonders-

_why would you be like this?_

daehyun was never enough as he was, was never enough as the sun, and yet less is somehow more, and in this stolen form of the thing the moon most loves, he's found his disingenuous happiness.

the moon loves humans, and daehyun isn't one.

but oh, that taffy-stretched heart is traitorous, and it opens itself up to the moon's love once more, even though it isn't - something identical but smaller, weaker, not the same - and daehyun knows it will only hurt all the more when it's torn out.

jaewon loves daehyun and the sun loves the moon and two of these things do not exist.

~

and the sun followed him.

~

being human is nothing but the moon is his everything.

daehyun doesn't know if there's a possible balance here.

jaewon sits next to him, the light of the moon playing on the planes of his face, and in this light, daehyun can almost imagine it's his moon, his love, the thing with love to give but never to him, and he leans in, chasing the taste of stardust and light.

if he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine this isn't some horrible parody of the dream he never quite realized.

the moon is his everything and jaewon is the moon but jaewon can never be his everything in the same way the sun can never be enough for the moon.

he loves what he wants jaewon to be, not what he is.

the cut-off point twists between his ribs.

~

but the moon died, again and again.

~

the sun does not think about it. 

the sun does not think and so time passes, and so the moon's light grows and dims in pin-pricks, nothing like what he is, what he was, more the rising and falling of the waves that loved him so, and the sun _aches_ to follow him, aches to see him again, aches with a taffy-stretched heart and crippled hope, and so he chases.

he loves the moon too much to let him stay down here.

he loves the moon too much to bring him home.

he's paralyzed in the worst way, stuck still while the earth keeps turning, and he wants him back but he wants him to go but the moon never loved him in the first place, so what does it matter?

his heartbeat is a badge of failure, plastered across his tally-mark ribs.

_b-bmp. b-bmp. b-bmp._

_you. are not. enough._

~

and so the sun followed him, again and again.

~

 _"i love you,"_ the sun once said, and the moon looked at him and said nothing.

"i love you," jaewon says, and daehyun laughs until he cries.

**Author's Note:**

> this has been in the works ever since jjolee's twit post (you know the one) and this was the end result
> 
> originally this was supposed to be much happier but
> 
> it's me so
> 
> VERY heavily inspired by this - https://archiveofourown.org/works/12875865 - please go read
> 
> the song i listened to while writing this was daughter's tomorrow
> 
> [twit](https://twitter.com/i_was_human_) | [lit fic discord!](https://discord.gg/CNunB74)


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